NEW YORK (from GenomeWeb – Madeleine Johnson) – Canadian firm GenePOC recently expanded its staff and intends to enter the molecular diagnostics market with a Group B Streptococcus assay at the end of the second quarter of 2016 and a Clostridium difficile assay in Q4 2016.

The company will initially launch the tests as CE-IVD products in Europe, and is aiming for US Food and Drug Administration approval of its platform and assays in late 2016.

To support these efforts, GenePOC received an undisclosed amount of private financing at the beginning of this year. Swiss development group Debiopharm Diagnostics is now the largest shareholder in GenePOC, with Montreal’s Emerillon Capital also providing investment.

“Since then, the company is progressing very rapidly,” Herbert Torfs, vice president of business development strategy, told GenomeWeb in an interview.